by B. J Daniels
Jesse shook his head. “I was older than you. I remember the night she told him she’d never loved him, never wanted us, would rather be dead than stay with him. He loved her, man, and he was devastated. She demanded money so she could leave. He refused to let her go.”
“So he had an affair.”
“I know you were only six, but don’t you remember how she was with us?” Jesse asked. “All the mornings she stayed in bed, didn’t even get up to see us off to school.”
Her disinterest was because of their father’s unfaithfulness. He could remember well their father standing at the stove frying bacon, the quiet in the house so loud it was deafening. “She was depressed because she was married to a cheating drunk.”
“Dad finally gave her the money she needed to leave. I followed Dad into the woods that day.” Jesse’s throat moved as if the words were stones he could barely swallow. “He fell to the ground and…I’ve never seen anyone cry like that.”
Mitch stared at his brother, the weight on his chest unbearable. He wanted to defend their mother, but nothing came out. His memories of the past that had once been so clear now felt so damaged that he couldn’t make sense of them. His father putting an arm around his mother’s shoulders. Her shrugging it off. The hurt in his father’s eyes, the pain.
“She wasn’t any good—”
“Don’t,” their father said from the doorway. “Your mother loved you both. She wanted to take you, but she wasn’t strong enough to raise two boys on her own.”
The lie hung in the air.
Mitch met Jesse’s gaze, the truth like an arrow through his heart. He glanced at the doorway, but his father was gone.
Jesse stepped to Mitch and hugged him tightly. Tears in his eyes, he let go, turned and walked back toward the front door, leaving Mitch standing on the deck alone.
Mitch felt sick. Was it possible he’d been wrong about everything he’d believed? All these years, why hadn’t his father said something? But he knew the answer to that. No one had wanted to admit just what kind of mother Mitch had really had.
His cell phone rang. “Yes?”
“Thought you’d want this right away,” said the head of forensics. “We got two matches on that decoy we found in the victim’s car. Her prints and an Ethel Whiting’s.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It was late afternoon and the rain was making the day even darker when Ethel Whiting opened her front door.
“I wondered when you’d be back.” She motioned Mitch into the parlor.
“Your fingerprints were found on the decoy that was used to kill Nina Bromdale,” he said as followed her into her sitting room.
Ethel lowered herself into a chair. “Bromdale?”
“It seems she might be the nanny’s daughter,” Mitch said. “Alma and Wade’s daughter.”
Ethel’s face seemed to crumble. “She wasn’t Angela?”
“No.” It was obvious she’d wanted to believe that Nina was Daisy’s and some other man’s besides Wade. “I think you should call your lawyer, Ethel.”
She shook her head. “I would have told you yesterday, but I thought Nina was still alive when her body wasn’t found at Dennison Ducks. I didn’t go to the plant Tuesday night planning to kill her. At least I don’t think so. I didn’t know who she was, just that she posed a danger to Wade. I thought I could scare her into leaving him alone.” She laughed softly. “Nothing could scare that young woman. I could see that there wasn’t enough money in the world to buy her off, either. We argued. She’d put down the duck she’d been painting. I hardly remember picking it up and hitting her.”
“Was she dead?”
She looked up. “I thought so. I didn’t check her pulse. I just dropped the decoy next to her body. I assumed as soon as you found her body and the murder weapon…”
“You knew your fingerprints were it?”
“Of course. And that they’d be on file. My parents had me fingerprinted as a child. They worried that because of their affluence, someone might kidnap me,” Ethel said. “Ironic, isn’t it.”
“You didn’t put Nina in her car and drive it into a ravine south of town?”
She gave him a sympathetic look. “I am not a deceitful woman, Mitchell. I did nothing to cover my crime. I had some things I wanted to get in order and I preferred spending what days I had left here in the house. I’ve been waiting for you to arrest me.”
“What time did you go to the plant?” he asked.
“A little before nine. Her car was in the lot. I knew she worked late a lot. Whatever that woman had on Wade, I could see what it was doing to him. I had to stop her.”
She’d done this for Wade. Mitch shook his head, remembering that Wade said he went to the plant at ten and Nina was gone. “Either Nina wasn’t dead, or someone moved her body.”
“Why would they do that?” Ethel asked.
“Is it possible Wade saw you leaving the plant Tuesday night? He found Nina’s body and tried to cover for you?”
She shook her head. “Wade has made a lot of poor decisions in his life, but he would never cover up a murder.”
Ethel had a lot more faith in Wade than Mitch did. But then, love was blind, wasn’t it?
“I’ll have someone come over to take you in.”
She gave him a reproachful look. “I’ll be right here, Mitchell.”
As he was about to call headquarters, he got another call. This one from the state police. Private investigator Kyle L. Rogers’s body had just been found in a motel room in Oakridge. He’d been shot at close range with a small-caliber weapon. His black pickup was nowhere to be found. “I’m on my way.”
* * *
CHARITY HAD her latest edition out and on the streets by late afternoon. It was going to be her best-selling newspaper by all accounts. Blaine was out delivering papers. The deputy Mitch had guarding her was sitting in the corner, thumbing through a magazine.
She’d finished all her work and was thinking about Mitch when he walked through the door. She knew something was wrong the moment she saw him.
“Kyle Rogers’s body had been found in a motel in Oakridge. Homicide,” Mitch told her and the deputy.
“I want you to go home, Charity. I’ve already called Florie. She’s meeting you at the house.”
“Okay.” He’d obviously expected her to argue and seemed surprised when she didn’t. And pleased. Was it this easy to please the man?
“I have to run down to Oakridge, then I’ll come by the house. I won’t be long.”
“Don’t worry about me,” she told Mitch. “I’m sure Florie will bring her baseball bat and I have an armed deputy. What more could a girl want?” She wanted Mitch’s strong arms around her. This being independent all the time was getting old.
“Promise me you’ll put the gun and pepper spray away with all the kids out trick-or-treating tonight.”
She nodded. “As soon as I get home.”
He glanced at the deputy. “You’ll stay with her?”
“Sure thing.”
Mitch walked her out to the deputy’s car. The rain had stopped temporarily, but low-hunkering clouds cast an eerie glow over the town. Fog drifted out of the woods like ghosts to haunt the narrow streets.
Jack-o’-lanterns flickered in front of several businesses. With everything that had been happening, Charity realized she’d forgotten to buy treats for the kids. She’d have to stop on the way home.
“Be careful?” Mitch said.
It was another one of those moments when a kiss would have been nice. But she couldn’t see Mitch kissing her in front of the deputy. “I will,” she said, then watched him drive away.
“We need to stop by the grocery store on the way home,” she told the deputy once they were in his car. “I have to pick up some candy for the trick-or-treaters. My Aunt Florie will bring things like carob cookies or tofu popcorn balls. I really don’t want to get my windows soaped and egged.”
She thought he might argue with her. Or maybe she just ex
pected all men to argue with her the way Mitch did. So she was a little perplexed when he just laughed.
Little ghosts and goblins were already out trick-or-treating. Halloween was a big deal in Timber Falls. Everyone got into the act at a huge costume party at the Duck-In. As the deputy drove her home from the grocery, they passed groups of children and adults dressed as vampires and zombies, aliens and witches.
Charity couldn’t help but shiver. There was a killer out there, maybe closer than any of them thought.
A group of costumed kids skittered across the street in front of them, squealing and shrieking as the deputy pulled up in front of her house.
The kids clambered up the steps to the porch. A moment later Florie opened the door and began dispensing something from a large bowl. Nothing good, Charity was sure of that.
She got out of the car with the huge bag of candy she’d bought at the store. She turned at the sound of another vehicle. A UPS truck lumbered to a stop beside her. “Got a package for you,” Chuck the UPS man called down to her from his truck.
The deputy had climbed out and come around to her side of the car. “Here,” she said, shoving the bag of candy at the deputy. “Get up there on the porch and save my windows.”
The deputy took the bag and hurried up the steps as Chuck held out his clipboard. “Need your signature right there, Charity.”
She signed and he handed her a large cardboard envelope. Wishing her a happy Halloween, he hopped back into the truck and took off down the street as the first drops of rain began to fall again.
It wasn’t until then that she looked at what he’d given her. Even in the dim light, she could read the sender’s name: Nina Monroe. Charity’s hands began to shake as she tore the parcel open to find a small white envelope inside with her name on it.
Rain fell harder and she started to open the purse hanging from her shoulder to stuff the letter inside. Unfortunately she had way too much in her purse already—gun, pepper spray, handcuffs—so she quickly shoved the letter into her jacket and zipped it closed.
She’d gotten a letter from a dead woman. The letter someone had been looking for? She couldn’t wait to get inside and open it, even though she knew she should wait until Mitch got there.
Behind her on the porch children chattered, and more were coming up the street. As she turned toward the house, she caught movement in the trees next to her. Her heart leaped to her throat as a huge dark object came flying out of the trees like a giant bat.
But it was only a person in a hooded black cape, the face a grotesque rubbery mask. Her first thought was that it was one of the parents taking his kids trick-or-treating, someone she knew, someone just trying to scare her.
But she was too scared to speak when he grabbed her and tried to rip her coat open. It took her only an instant to realize that he was after the letter.
She screamed and fought him off, managing to break free. She could see the deputy trying to get through the cluster of kids to her.
But another cluster of kids had just started up the stairs to the porch, and the caped man was on her again. She fought him, clawing at his eyes, managing to pull his mask away for an instant. Just long enough to see his face. Bud Farnsworth! The foreman at Dennison Ducks.
She opened her mouth to scream again, but he clamped his gloved hand over her mouth and, lifting her, ran into the trees and darkness as the rain began to fall in a torrent.
Only a few yards into the forest, Charity looked back and couldn’t see the house. Or anyone chasing them. They’d disappeared from view. She could hear the deputy behind them. But without a flashlight, he couldn’t see her. She tried to scream but was prevented by the thick glove over her mouth. She heard the deputy on his radio calling Mitch. But how would Mitch ever be able to find her?
She struggled to free herself, but Bud was much stronger than she was, and now that she’d seen his face, she knew he’d never let her go.
He burst out of the trees onto a side road and carried her toward a black pickup. The black pickup. Jerking open the driver’s side, he threw her in, then climbed in after her. Her purse strap broke, and several of the lighter items in it spilled across the seat. He grabbed the purse and threw it behind the seat, then hit the automatic door locks as she lunged for the opposite-side door handle. Trapped, she screamed bloody murder.
“Stupid bitch,” he snarled, and backhanded her so hard she saw stars. The pickup engine roared to life. He hit the gas and tore off, tires screaming. In the side mirror, she thought she glimpsed the deputy run out into the street a block away, but Bud quickly turned and sped down the road toward Dennison Ducks.
“Give me the letter,” he ordered, and ripped the mask from his face, throwing it to the floor. “Now.” He backhanded her again when she didn’t respond.
She cowered as close to her door as she could, crossing her arms over chest, the feel of the letter against her breast.
“Just give me the letter,” he growled. “Don’t make me take it from you.”
Something deep inside her told her he would kill her once he got the letter. Whatever Nina had written was incriminating enough that it had cost at least one other person his life. If Charity gave Bud the letter, he would get away with murder. If she didn’t, she had no doubt he would take it. Either way she was a dead woman unless she could get away from him.
Ahead she saw the turnoff for Dennison Ducks. She knew that if he took her past there, he would have her in an isolated area where she wouldn’t stand a chance. In the side mirror, she saw that there were no lights in pursuit.
She was on her own.
She lunged for the steering wheel and jerked it toward the right. She heard his curse and felt the pickup swerve before he swung at her. She ducked back and felt something bite into her hip.
When her shoulder bag had spilled across the seat, the heavy items, like her gun and pepper spray, had stayed in the purse. Just her luck. Right now the handcuffs were digging into her hip. Why couldn’t something useful have fallen out of her purse?
Bud fought to keep the pickup on the slippery muddy road, got it back under control and tromped down on the gas. “I was going to wait until we were farther up the road but…” He unlocked the doors and reached across her, grabbing the door handle. The door swung open and she saw what he planned to do. Throw her out! And at this speed, she was toast.
She reached under her hip for the handcuffs.
He grabbed the front of her jacket, trying to get the letter. Once he did…
“I’ll give you the letter!” she cried, knocking his hands away.
He shifted his gaze back and forth between her and the road, not slowing down, but keeping his hands to himself. Did he think she didn’t realize he still planned to throw her out the moment she handed him the letter?
A less-than-inspired plan leaped to mind. Amazing what the mind can come up with when you’re totally panicked and fighting for your life.
It was suicidal. Her craziest plan yet. She reached into her jacket and then pretended to be jostled by the road. She fell toward him.
He grabbed the steering wheel with both hands, obviously thinking she was going to try to wrest it from his grip again. She reached over her head and snapped one cuff to his right wrist, planning to snap the other to the steering wheel.
The original plan had been simple, wreck the pickup and run. If she could run. And if he didn’t run after her too quickly. This improved plan was even better. Bud wouldn’t be able to run after her because he would be handcuffed to the steering wheel.
Bud was going ballistic, screaming at the sight of the handcuff dangling from his wrist and trying to hit her. But she had hold of the other cuff and was hanging on for dear life.
She grabbed the steering wheel, trying to hook the other cuff to it. The pickup began to swerve.
Bud knocked her away, breaking her hold on the other cuff. The pickup was skidding sideways in the mud. Bud was fighting to keep it on the road.
With both his han
ds busy, she tried again, only to have him grab her by the hair and hold her down with one hand as he tried to right the pickup.
From her position facedown on the seat between the two of them, she couldn’t reach the steering wheel. Her inspired plan took on a new twist, this one truly suicidal, but she’d run out of options and knew after this Bud would kill her and take the letter, then dump her body along the road and Mitch would find her in some ditch.
She snapped the other cuff to her own wrist—just an instant before the pickup careened off the road and came to a bone-jarring stop. Her head smacked the gearshift and the lights went out.
* * *
CHARITY AWOKE aware that she was being carried, the ground uneven, then flat. She opened her eyes. Rain fell on her face. There was no light at first. Then she saw the small glow at the employee entrance of Dennison Ducks. He was taking her to the plant.
At the door, he stopped to set her down, sweating from the effort of hauling her. “I should kill you right now,” he said, waving a gun at her with his free hand. “Nina was much easier to kill than you. But then, Ethel had already coldcocked her good with a decoy.”
She could tell he wanted to shoot her, but he was already winded from carrying her. He needed her to walk to wherever they were going. Otherwise, she’d already be dead.
He dug out his key, cursing her, then opened the door and shoved her through it. The handcuff chaffed her wrist painfully as she stumbled inside and he jerked her back to him.
She looked around for a weapon. Her purse was in the pickup and she could see nothing within reach that she could use as he dragged her back through the shelves of ducks, never letting her get close enough to grab one. It grew darker and darker as they moved away from the light near the entrance.
At the back of the building, Bud turned on a small lamp over a workbench, picked up a hacksaw and, with the sweep of his free arm, cleared off everything within her reach.
When he turned to look at her, his face was distorted in anger. “I can’t believe you did something so stupid,” he spat at her as he dragged her closer to the workbench. Dropping the hacksaw, he grabbed the front of her jacket and jerked her to him. He ripped the jacket apart and the letter fell to the floor.
